


We Few

by Lautari



Series: Threading Stars [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Brotherhood, Comrades in Arms, Gen, Honor and Duty, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 03:17:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17859233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lautari/pseuds/Lautari
Summary: Luke gently set his helmet down on the desk along with his patch. He fingered it reverently before closing his fist and stepping back. Wedge frowned again, tapping the helmet with his pencil. “What’s this?”





	We Few

**Author's Note:**

> Setting: A year after Return of the Jedi  
> I love my Rogues.

Rogue headquarters were still aboard Home One, but Wedge dreamed of a day when they would have a permanent command center, with berths, maintenance bays, sim training rooms…..offices that weren’t actually closets. He pinched the bridge of his nose. He was looking at his third cup of caf in the rearview. There was a lull in the fighting, star system after star system falling in with the New Republic while the fleet steamed Coreward. Therefore, Wedge had no excuse for the time being to put off requisitions or reviewing application requests. He preferred working during the late night cycles; the hangar was quiet and he was rarely disturbed while cranked out paperwork Ackbar had been on his ass about. Rarely. A knock on his door had him barely looking up. “Enter.”

The door slid open, revealing Luke in his flightsuit.

“Luke,” Wedge greeted. He continued scratching on the flimsy, but he shook his head. “We’ve got to do something about those three X-wings we’ve got parked. I was told the mechanics couldn’t get to them for at least another two days and even then they’ll only be able to replace the targeting computer in two of them. We could scrap one for parts, but we honestly need as many fighters space worthy as possible. I was checking them over today, and I think there’s one that could be nursed along a little longer, but we would need a few hoses from inventory. That yeoman guarding the cage is like a rabid Thernbee though. Would it be un-Jedi like to procure them with a little persuas-,” He frowned, mid tirade. “What?”

Luke gently set his helmet down on the desk along with his patch. He fingered it reverently before closing his fist and stepping back. Wedge frowned again, tapping the helmet with his pencil. “What’s this?”

“I’m resigning my commission.”

“What?” Wedge threw the pencil down and leaned back. “No.”

“They’ve already accepted-,”

“Well _I_ don’t. High Command can kiss my ass.”

Luke sighed. “Do you accept-,”

“ _No_ , damn it. You’re half blind, you deaf too?”

“Wedge, it’s done.”

The pilot was seething. “You owe me an explanation. You owe all of us one – Wes, Tycho, Hobbie, everyone that you handpicked when we-,” he gestured between them “-formed this squadron.”

“I know.”

“Well?”

Luke’s eyes were pained. “I can’t.”

He expected an outburst. A good old Corellian dressing down that he could parry with a Tatooine cussing that Wedge liked to call “Outer Rim voodoo”. But there was none of that. Wedge just glared at him with murder in his eyes and knocked the helmet and patch off the desk. “That’s what I think of your resignation.”

Luke’s jaw clenched, but he simply straightened, saluted, and dismissed himself, leaving the gear on the floor.

**OOOOO**

An hour later, Wedge approached the Jedi cautiously, though he knew Luke was aware of his presence. Even before training, Luke’s raw abilities manifested themselves in seemingly ordinary ways. Wedge and the other boys made a game out of who could sneak up on him that escalated to unfair rounds of hide and seek in their downtime. When Solo found out, he capitalized on it by running bets amongst them in between supply runs for the rebellion. Given that the squadron, Solo, and the princess were the only ones to know about his abilities at first, Leia eventually found out about the fledgling gambling circuit and brought it to its knees – but not before winning a few rounds against Luke herself, much to the surprise of everyone. He grinned at the bittersweet memories.

The helmet dangled from his hand. His anger had diffused, but hadn’t drained entirely. The past two years had been a difficult road for the two friends. They’d patched up their friendship in the days following Endor, fights never lingering between the two for long, but Luke had become increasingly distracted since the frantic evacuation of Echo Base. He’d handed command of Rogue Squadron over to Wedge and disappeared, before turning up again badly injured with a subdued spirit that hadn’t lifted since.

Artoo spotted him and trundled over, whistling, but Wedge brushed past him without his usual congenial greeting to the astromech. "Not now, Artoo."

Luke was underneath his X-wing, dropping items from the storage space underneath the cockpit into a crate. “I’m just clearing my stuff out.”

_“Stop.”_

Luke kicked the crate and braced his arms against the hull of his fighter, but said nothing.

“I stopped by our quarters earlier. Your stuff is gone.”

Luke wiped his hands on a rag, but still didn’t look at him. “It’s not like it’s a break up, Wedge.”

No. It was worse.

They’d been roommates since Yavin, first bunking with Wes and Hobbie before moving into official officer quarters after the Rebel Alliance began attempting to form into the New Republic government and military, and lose the lax fraternization that made so much of the forces a family. They had grieved comrades together, gotten drunk together, fussed at each other together, snuck girls out in early mornings together, _built Rogue Squadron_ together, all across two bunks. Seeing Luke’s bed stripped did something to him that Luke’s turning in of his wings hadn’t.

“I need to know why.”

Luke didn’t immediately speak. Sighing, Wedge plopped down on one of the old 'freshers the squadron used as seats and set down the pack of bier he had confiscated from Hobbie’s locker during an impromptu inspection on his way over. “Catch.”

Luke still hadn’t turned to face him, but his hand shot out and snagged the can from the air. “Wedge, I _can’t_ tell you.”

The Corellian snorted. “But you can tell Han and Leia?”

“You don’t understand –“

“I don’t? What am I missing, Luke?” Wedge’s anger was flaring again. “I like Han, but he did supply runs for three years, hiding from a Hutt before getting thrown in carbonite. The Rogues kept your secret, and _I_ was the one there during the month of therapy after you lost your hand. We were all there every time you screamed in the middle of the night this past year. We were here, always, even when you weren’t.” He shrugged. “We still need you though. I know you hate command. But the light is at the end of the tunnel, and we’re starting to become what we’ve fought for. We’ve got star systems that had a common goal and now they have personal interests. There are species that are all of a sudden remembering they don’t like each other, and refusing to fly together. _We need you_.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Luke sat on his crate. “I know you deserve answers. But I’m not ready. And this affects more than just me,” he said, thinking of Leia. “Besides, when everything finally does come out…Rogue Squadron is going to want to be as far from the fallout as possible.” The lump in his throat burned, thinking of the friends he would lose. “I just….it’s not going to be the same, Wedge.”

“But Luke, you love being a pilot.”

Luke swallowed. Maybe this was his final trial. It hurt more than anything else, giving up what he wanted more than anything else. Being a Jedi was thrust upon him, though he knew down to his very core, it was who he was. But being a pilot…it was who he was as well. The joystick under his hand felt just as right as a lightsaber. Cloud City had sent him spiraling, and he knew that Wedge was right. He had half assed his responsibilities. Yoda’s words _“…not ready for the burden you must carry_ …” floated into memory. But he understood now, that Wedge could build Rogue Squadron into the stuff of legend. Others could build the New Republic military. Only Luke could resurrect the Order. Everything else had to be lain down, along with the fear of his last name. He’d come a long way from the cave on Dagobah. His next words still nearly killed him. “Rogue Squadron is yours.”

Wedge shook his head. “I’m never going to understand until you tell me.” He set the unopened can down between them and placed the helmet beside it with the patch. “But I will never accept this.”

He walked away, leaving Luke in the quiet hangar for a long time before he placed both cans, and the helmet and patch inside the crate with everything else and slammed the storage compartment shut. “Let‘s go, Artoo.”


End file.
